List five things you would have changed from The Force Awakens

I said it felt that way. The idea was boring and half-assedly executed, at least in the finished product.

 

I'm not disagreeing... just pointing out that it was something they spent a lot of time on...

 

My take, Kylo will do something stupid like try and kill Snoke. He won't succeed and Snoke will end him. That may be when Snoke decides to focus his attention on seducing Rey.

 

Had to see the movie a few times to decide what I would change. here's my current list:

1. Better demonstration of Rey's combat skills at the beginning (to better support why she can wield a saber at all at the end, the thug battle wasn't enough)
2. Some brief mention/introduction of the Republic, and the fact they are in a system with N billions of people. (like we got with Alderaan) The system being destroyed is visually stunning, but the reactions of others (especially Leia) didn't convince me this was a big deal (and it is).
3. Some indication of how Rey comes up with the idea to use a Jedi mind trick. (future episodes could help explain this, if she had seen it used by someone, or mind leeched it from Kylo....)
4. A stronger understanding of why R2 woke up when he did. (an interview explains this, but it's too obscure: BB-8s 1st interaction with R2 implies he mentioned having a map part, and that R2 might have the same archives from the Empire - the ones Kylo mentions to Poe)
5. A little more dialogue between Leia and Rey at the end. (at least share something about Han dying, or why Rey will go find Luke and not have Leia come, who was set up as "desperately" looking for her brother in the opening crawl)

A sixth, for me, was some indication of a romantic sub plot for the future films. (right now, it might be Rey and Finn, but the framing for it is decidedly platonic)

 

1.) rathtars
2.) rathtars
3.) rathtars
4.) rathtars
5.) rathtars

 

This is more than 5 things, but off the top of my head, if I were keeping the same basic story:

1) I'd change the terrain of Jakku to something not seen in the other films, or at least not as similar to Tattooine.

2) Make Lor San Tekka a character from the Original Trilogy, so there is an emotional connection and to explain his history with Leia, right away without saying a word. Reikan, Derlin, Madine, Wedge... Some surviving supporting character.

3) Been clear that the map was to the First Jedi Temple, not specifically to Luke. They just assume Luke went there.

4) Come up with a rathtar design that could have been done practically or at least obeyed the laws of physics. They were very Men in Black.

5) Give TR-8R's big scene to Phasma, so she has something to do. Just have Han wound her in the shoulder instead of being blown away like TR-8R was.

6) Be clear that Snoke & Kylo are so hellbent on finding Luke's location because they want to blow it up with Starkiller from a distance, because they are both so afraid to face him and that is the sole reason they even built Starkiller.

7) Do something to establish Hosnian Prime, or just make it Coruscant that is destroyed. Blow up a planet we actually care about, not some random world that is torched from a distance with no real connection to it.

8) I'm thinking I'd replace Maz with Luke and have Han have secretly known where Luke was the whole time. Han's so set on not facing Leia that he wants Luke to take Finn, Rey, & BB-8 to her. I think I wouldn't have the FO realize Luke is there until they are attacking the equivalent of Maz's castle & have already captured Rey. Then Kylo is at once terrified and overconfident in attacking Luke and gets his ass handed to him, narrowly escaping. Have Luke stay behind at the Resistance base with Leia, after the Resistance makes the save, or have Leia insist on sending him to a secure location again to keep him safe from any Starkiller attack, since he's the last living Jedi. There are easy excuses to keep him out of action so he doesn't overshadow the heroes in the 3rd act.

9) I'd probably lose the whole Resistance entirely and just had them be the New Republic military. And have more variety in ships. At least have as many different ships as in Jedi. (X-Wing, Y-Wing, A-Wing, B-Wing, etc). I also would have included the Sledgehammer from early drafts.

10) If there has to be a Starkiller, have it built into an inhabited planet like Sullust, so the Resistance can no longer just blow it up without ethical ramifications and collateral damage. Make them come up with a more strategic solution.

11) In the book, Snoke tries to coax Rey into killing Kylo. I'd have kept that, too.

 

I would change more than five things but i'll keep this list at five.
In no particular order.
Star Killer base doesn't exist and is a hoax/trap.
Captain Phasma, enough said.
Better characterization the Resistance / the New Republic and their members.
Have more of the characters interacting with each other at the end of the movie, from the side characters to the main cast.
Cut the whole "Rathtars" part of the movie to help make more room for the stuff i put on my list.
Doing these few thing would pretty much fix the movie for me.

 

1. More about the Republic and the state of the Galaxy. There was simply no reason to care when the Republic home world got destroyed.

2. Phasma's capitulation. She destroys Starkiller Base to buy herself five more minutes? Count me unconvinced.

3. Less reboot, more original content. I realize casual fans and movie goers who are new to the Star Wars franchise probably don't mind the copy/paste, but for a Star Wars nerd like me who's seen each movie probably 40 times, the lack of new content was disappointing.

4. Kylo Ren's inconsistencies. Is he powerful or weak today? Calm enough to act rationally, or is he slashing up computer consoles because he got some unexpected bad news?

5. Fewer coincidences. The chasm? The arrival of the pirates? The collapse of the ground as the Falcon takes off? The Rathrars? The Falcon coming to a sliding stop right on the edge of a cliff? One of the five would be expected. Two would be okay. Three is a stretch. But all five just feels like the movie's trying too hard.

 

mostly echo-chamber from me:

1. no cgi Snoke.
2. better use of Phasma.
3. do something different with the whole rathtar scene (maybe just make it a firefight with the gangs).
4. lose T8-TR (combine with no. 2, above, for epic Finn/Phasma fight).
   
5. dispense with this silly mystery about Rey's parentage (it's just going to make people angry in the long run).

bonus wish: don't kill Han Solo? oh fine....

 

1. No Starkiller Base. The plot was about the search for Luke and Starkiller Base was irrelevant to that.

2. Don't show Snoke. It's clear that it was a hologram created at the last minute, so the trilogy would have been better off leaving Snoke's appearance up to VIII or IX. We could still hear Snoke's voice.

3. Instead of Snoke openly being the leader, Hux or Hux's father should be the official leader with Snoke being the secret master of Hux, Hux's father, and Kylo. Hux was the one speaking at the Starkiller launch rally and considering that the Empire followed Palpatine because they thought he was the democratically elected Chancellor who was assaulted by Mace Windu, it doesn't make sense for them to follow a random alien dark side master.

4. Make Jakku a swamp with Death Star II wreckage and make the Starkiller Base planet Dantooine and include a volcano on it. These were great concepts that were scrapped in favor of rehashing Tatooine and a generic Taiga.

5. Show the Finalizer from the same angle that the OT shows the Star Destroyers from.

 

1. A scene where Hux, Kylo and Phasma are on the screen at the same time talking about the droid. Rather than the scene where Hux and Kylo are walking with Phasma in the background.

2. Reinstall the deleted scene of Rey worried about Finn on the operating table but instead of the doctor have Poe come over and say he's spoken to the doctor and Finn looks like he will pull through.

3.A battle, rather the slapstick scene of Han Chewie and Finn holding phasma at gun point to lower the shields. Have some thing else that shows Finn be clever and Phasma more formidable

4. briefly show how Korr Sella was sent to the capital to get the leaders on her side. Nothing big, but enough to make us care about them when Hosnian Prime blows up

5. An extended scene with Leia and Rey right before she tells her "may the force be with you." With Leia telling Rey that as a new Force user, she's putting her faith and trust in Rey, since Han did. And that she wants her to find Luke and bring him back. (To show Luke there are still Force sensitives that must be trained and he shouldn't lose faith as a teacher because of what happened to Ben.) Also Leia mentions she needs to stay because of martial law being in place after the capitals destruction.

bonus: the rumored deleted scene where Rey drinks alcohol for the first time at Maz's and gets drunk.
Or better yet, Rey eats her food at Maz's the same way she ate it at her AT-AT home, scarfing it down with her mouth open and then licking the plate. The camera then focuses on Han and Finn looking at her like she's crazy.

 

Also, no rathtars.

 

You would think... Good point!

 

1. Cover Snoke's face with a hood. I think it's important that for the first movie of the new trilogy, we don't know what he looks like but we can see his eyes and hear him speak.
2. Make General Hux the son of Luke and Jyn Erso as well as Rey's brother and have him be the conflicted one compared to Kylo. For that matter, have Hux run into Rey, Finn and Kylo during their duel. Hux recognizes Rey, simply saying "Sister" or something and then when Rey returns, Leia reveals the truth to Rey about who she is, therefore setting up a much more emotional ending between father and daughter and setting the stages for a deeper look at Luke's relationship with Jyn.
3. Bring Phasma into the scenes with Hux and Kylo Ren. The way they treated her in the film, she deserved more screentime.
4. Change Kylo Ren's real name to "Anakin Solo". The way I would do it is have General Hux's real name be "Ben Skywalker" (His name was changed to "Ben Hux" after being seduced to the dark side and assigned to the First Order). Rey's real name would be "Padme Skywalker" in memory of Luke and Leia's mother. And then Kylo's would be "Anakin Solo". And then those three characters would be named after the three most important characters in the prequel trilogy.
5. Completely erase Simon Pegg from the film. He was unnecessarily casted, unneeded and he ripped on the prequels.

 

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Add massive Space battles. No Star Killer base. Sith Academy with lots of Sith in training would be better than Starkiller base. Luke shoulda been cloaked by the force. I would have rather the FO find the Resistance Fleet come out of warp and see a massive space battle where resistances lost most everything in their fleet than the whole planet thing.

 

Have Poe say "Lock S-foils in attack position"!!! Are you kidding me, Poe??????
Two opportunities to say it in one movie...and nothing.
Poe could have said "Buddy" five less times, and used the time to say the classic pre-battle line.

*heavy breathing*

 

I find it so weird that so many of us, after months and months of some truly brilliant speculation on the possible storylines for the movie (which, quite honestly, got me more excited about what the movie might have been about than the trailers and teasers did!), are grumbling about how there's not enough similarity between TFA and ANH! I can't tell you how many times I've said that they have an entire universe to play with, and with the entire EU being scrubbed, they have more or less a clean slate on where to go next. So for the life of me, I simply cannot understand why they would simply re-hash the first film they made, unless someone at Disney looked at George's treatments, binned them and said, "OK, so we basically need to make obscene amounts of money in order to be able to milk the s**t out of this cash-cow for the next 50 years. We know that ANH did really well in box office, home VHS and later DVD & Blu-Ray sales, so screw it - why don't we just make another ANH?"

I mean, think about it: the environments, alien species, political complications, crazy scenarios, new weapons and ships.... Everything could have been fresh, aside from the OT cast and perhaps some nods to the OT and PT, but nothing as overt as the frickin' trench run, for goodness' sake....

Anyway, five things I'd change:

1) Using Michael Arndt as a story writer:
C'mon, guys - even us hardcore fans have got to admit that the story was pretty weak where it wasn't just a complete rip-off of ANH. That story overall was just bland and unnecessary. And presumably he was hired on the basis of what? Toy Story 3? That's it. They could have asked Timothy Zahn, James Luceno, Kevin J Anderson for a story, or even just to get permission to use some of their stories or components to cobble together. Hell, why didn't they ask Chuck Wendig for one since they trusted him with an entire trilogy of canon books?

2) Rathtars:
It just felt like a section of the movie that had just specifically been put in there to make the video game version more interesting and marketable, much like the podracing scene in TPM.

3) Kylo Ren's (mental) age:
If you're being trusted to wield a lightsaber, you shouldn't be having temper tantrums, and especially not taking it out on working consolse on the vessel that's keeping you alive in deep space.... He was such a whiny Vhlor, it was embarassing to watch. Yes, we got that he's in emotional turmoil over the whole Light vs Dark within him, and yes, he probably knew he'd have to kill his father, but he was just so wet compared to Maul, Dooku, Grievous, Tarkin, Vader and Palpatine. Did they really need the emo ticket sales that badly?

4) Overall pacing of the movie:
There were scenes that should have been longer and better-explained, and others that were totally unnecessary. For example - those that needed to go: Poe's "who talks first?" line, Finn's "sanitation" line and presumptions on how the Force works, given that we already know he knows nothing specific about it, and Bazine Netal's scene in Maz's castle. Those that should have been longer: the scenes that they'd already filmed with the martial arts guys from The Raid, more info on Hosnian Prime and why it was significant to the galaxy over Coruscant,

5) Leia, Chewie and Rey:
JJ has admitted he messed up over why Leia hugged Rey instead of Chewie after Han's death, and how Chewie seemed to be able to just get on with his day. More should have been made of Leia sensing his death through the Force (maybe even a touch of Binary Sunset in the background?), and Chewie should have got a lot more sympathy from those around him.

And as one final small request to change - What the hell kind of name is Ahch-To? Sort it out, dude, that's almost as bas as Unobtainium. Ugh.

 

From what I remember, Michael wrote the original story but backed off because he couldnt work with the short timeline that he was originally given and his story was changed heavily from what it was initially.

The Rathtars were there literlaly because of a tongue-in-cheek (an expensive one) nod to Harrison Ford as his last outing as Han Solo .

About Kylo's mental age...tell that to all of the sith that ever existed .

The pacing was so quick that, by the time it ended, I was like, "...that's it???" And I've said it before but there was dialogue that seemed to "DisnyChannel-like."

The whole Chewie thing probably also had to do with pacing issues, which, in my mind, had a lot to do with not using the classic swipes (BLAME THE EDITOR

 

Five things i'd change. I mean, if I'd been directing it I think the whole thing would have been very different. And probably not for the better. I would have focused on Luke I'm sure and I would have taken more influence from Lucas's influences (Akira Kurosawa, Flash gordon and so on,) and less from Lucas's previous work. I mean, I never wanted ANH 2.

But that said. that wouldn't even be the Force Awakens would it...that would just be my sequel. So within the frame work of TFA:

1. I wouldn't cut the x-wing fight at the end, though I might have shuffled it because it really got in the way of the Laser-sword fight. And by that point that's all I was interested in. The space fight had no momentum or urgency. And its so obvious from Lucas's films that George really dug vehicle fights, chase scenes and dog fights. and TFA part of space warfare seemed so shoehorned in and nostalgia focused. I don't think JJ really cares for spaceships or pod races but Lucas really made them enjoyable. So yeah, it needed shuffling. Put it before the saber fight. Have Finn and Han and Chewie in it doing some dog fighting. and put Phasma up there or something so she has something to do. It would have been cool it Finn had done some good shooting in the Falcon, It could have balanced out a lot of characters.


2. Rathtars yeah, actually the whole scene with Han and the gangs was bad. Its the only scene in the film I don't like. It feels Star Trek. and Abram's Star Trek at that. Why couldn't Finn and Rey arrive at Maz's castle all on their own (would have been easy to give them a reason to- Fuel for example, or whatever) and have Han track them to the planet and their could have been a bit where Finn and Rey think he's first order and confront him/him confront them in the Cantina, (ala Aragorn's into in Fellowship of the ring?)
Cut the rathtars and gangs it was all so not starwars. Hans character could have been explained over a drink at the bar easily, would have been great to watch him and Rey get drunk while Finn worries about the first order.


3. Sort out the exposition conversation between Han and Leia. its just, like they tell the audience the plot. that dialog is so bad 'I wen't back to doing the only thing I was ever any good at'
'We both did'
I mean, That should be obvious via their actions on screen. That little interaction between them felt so forced. Better have them sit awkwardly and for a while before talking about Ben without outlining their life story post ESB in my opinion. it didn't feel organic or true to me the way they spoke in that particular scene.

4. Sort out star killer base. It was so poor. Someone above said that it should have been built on an inhabited planet so the Resistance couldn't just blow it up. I think thats good. Espionage and tension are great to build a moment.

5. (this is just being picky now) Sort out the characters- sort out Poe and Phasma specifically. its so obvious that Poe had no story arc post Finn's arrival on Jakku, and he could have. and Phasma even more so was obviously just a cool suit of armour. Give them something to do. A Dog Fight in space would work. anything would have given them weight.